GT Cup Round Four.. Oulton Park July 25th 2009
Thu 16 Jul 2009
Having visited Snetterton, Brands Hatch and Silverstone the GT Cup now heads north to Oulton Park on July 25th.
GT Cup is having a remarkable season with full grids at every round. As usual the ‘Million Pound Grid' sees a superb turn out of fabulous GT machinery; there will be Porsches, Ferraris, Aston Martins, a Corvette, Dodge Viper and flurry of Lotus Exige. All part of the spectacular 34 car maximum grid.
There are four ‘Groups' in GT Cup, based upon maximum potential performance of each car within strictly applied minimum weight and maximum power bands for each model. Group One is made up of the faster cars like The Viper, Corvette and the Ferrari 430 GT3. So far the monstrous Viper of Mike Gardiner has been the car to beat, Mike is a very competent driver in a very powerful but monumentally heavy car, but will a tight, ‘handling' track like Oulton with no big straights suit his car or will it play into the hands of Mike Donovan's nimble yet rapid Porsche 997GT3S. Michael Saunders caused a stir when he brought his TVR Cerbera out at Brands Hatch where he had a 2nd and 4th. This could be interesting!
Group Two is likely to be a head to head between the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup and Ferrari 430 Challenge GT but new comer Benji Hetherington in his Ginetta G50 GT4 may put up a fight. Front runner Pete Morris is back with his Porsche 997 GT3 Cup car, but he is up against Ian Hartley and Leon Price in their Ferraris and who were part of an impressive 1 -,2 - 3 Ferrari ‘lock out' at Snetterton. Pete has not been out in his car for a while but is a proven force to be reckoned with as is Simon Leith who is hiring Andy Ruhan s Porsche whilst he is away.
Group Three is the home of the Porsche 996 GT3 Cup cars and Ferrari 360 GT. This will also be a very close run thing. Colin Broster and Marco Pullen in their Ferrari 360s both had wins at Brands Hatch and Gary Eastwood will be back in his Porsche now being looked after by Parr Motorsport. Keep an eye open for Alex Martin in his Porsche 996 GT3 Cup who has been improving all the way through the season. Also look out for Steve Taylor who has been reclassified into Group 3 from Group 2 following detuning of his Supercharged Lotus in an attempt to make it more reliable. Organisers will be watching out to ensure there is a close run race but look forward to the prospect of bringing another make into the mix to take on the Porsche Ferrari dominance seen so far.
Group Four has been dominated by Will Goff in his stunning Aston Martin GT4, with a 100% success rate and will without doubt be the man to beat. Returning to GT Cup is Sarah Bennett-Baggs, this time she will be driving an Aston Martin GT4 so Will may have to watch out. Oulton Park could suit the Lotus Exige so there is good chance that Matt Cummings could well be on the podium. Never discount the hard working 944 Turbo of David Botterill who has also been on the podium several times this year.
Rolling Starts are always spectacular and dramatic, even more so when you add up the value of the full grid of cars involved.
